Sarita, Dad, and I stood around the bed, barely breathing, wondering what Agnes was about to confess. I wanted to call the police station again, try to get Duckworth, but I couldn’t tear myself away from this.
She said to Mom, “You’ve always been able to roll with things better than I could. I have a need to... control things.”
Credit to all of us — Sarita excepted, who did not know Agnes the way we did — for not snickering.
“It’s what’s made you successful,” Mom told her. “You have to control things. You have a lot of responsibility. You’ve got the lives of hundreds, even thousands of people in your hands.”
“I failed her,” she said.
“Failed... Marla?” Mom asked.
“She was determined to have the baby. When that boy got her pregnant, she was determined to have it. I couldn’t talk her out of it. I tried to get her to end the pregnancy. Told her this boy wasn’t suitable husband material, even if he was willing to step up and do the right thing. She had no way to support herself other than this Internet thing she was doing.”
Agnes took a moment to breathe, then continued.
“But Marla wouldn’t listen. I tried to get her to see reason. She couldn’t handle being a mother. She’s always been too emotionally immature, too... flighty, too needy, too distracted to look after a baby. I knew, I just knew that if she had this child, it would fall to me to look after both of them. And I’d had this feeling that she was almost back on two feet again, that she was going to move forward with her life, get her act together. A child... it would be an enormous setback for her.”
She dabbed a tear from the corner of her eye. “Do you remember my friend Vera?”
“Vera?”
“She had a tremendous future ahead of her, and then she met this married man, and she got pregnant, and—”
“I remember,” Mom said.
“I wasn’t going to let that happen to Marla. I raised the idea of adoption. That if she wanted to have the baby, then have it, but let a proper family, with a mother and a father and the financial means, raise the child. But Marla would have none of it. She said if her child were put up for adoption, she’d track it down, try to get it back.”
Gently, Mom said, “Agnes, it was her decision to make.”
Agnes focused on the nap of the bedspread, ran a palm across it. Softly, she said, “I was coming to accept that. And then an opportunity presented itself. Jack... Dr. Sturgess told me about a friend of his, Bill Gaynor, who was also a patient. Bill’s wife, Rosemary, too. They’d been trying for a long time to have a baby, but it wasn’t possible. And when Rosemary had a hysterectomy, that was the end of it. They’d been trying to adopt, found the process long and difficult and frustrating. Jack said he had an idea, something that would solve not just their problem, and mine and Marla’s, but his, too.”
“His?” I asked.
“He owed money. A lot of money. He’s addicted. He gambles. It’s why his wife left him. He worked out a deal months in advance with Bill Gaynor. A hundred thousand dollars and he could get them a baby. Marla’s baby. With a proper birth certificate and everything. Gaynor knew the deal was underhanded, but he didn’t tell his wife just how underhanded. Jack made it all seem legit, but to protect the mother’s anonymity, he told Rosemary everyone had to believe the child really was hers; that was how it had to be. So for a few months, before... before it was done, she lived in Boston. So no one in Promise Falls would question why she’d never looked pregnant.”
“Where is this going, Agnes?” Mom asked. “What did you do?”
Agnes needed several seconds to find the words. “I let my daughter believe her child had died,” she said.
Mom pulled her hand away from Agnes’s. “My God.”
Agnes looked down. “I wish I could say that was the worst of it.”
Sixty-eight
Duckworth went back to his desk, sat down, thought.
There was something not right about any of this. Marla gives birth to a child but has no real memory of the event. This happens at the exact same time Rosemary Gaynor gives birth to a bundle of joy.
Except Rosemary Gaynor didn’t give birth.
He looked through his notes, found a cell phone number for Bill Gaynor. He picked up the receiver on his landline and dialed.
The phone rang several times, then: “Yes?”
It was just one word, but the man sounded agitated. There was car noise in the background.
“It’s Detective Duckworth, Mr. Gaynor. Have I caught you at a bad time?”
“No, no, it’s... it’s okay. What is it?”
“A couple of things. This may sound like an odd question, but I’m just going over some timeline issues, and a few other things.”
“Okay,” he said tentatively.
“About Ms. Gaynor — I was wondering, did she have the baby in Promise Falls?”
A pause. “No, no, she did not. We were out of town at the time.”
“I see. Where was that? Was it Boston? Was the baby born at a hospital in Boston?”
“Well, actually, let me just correct myself about that. Rosemary had Matthew almost the moment we returned. But I’d been working out of the home office in Boston, and I didn’t want to leave Rosemary home alone at such a critical time in her pregnancy, so we had made arrangements with a hospital in Boston.”
“Which hospital was that?”
“Uh, let me think. It’ll come to me in a moment.”
“Was there one doctor in particular your wife was seeing in Boston?”
A pause. Then: “There were a few. I don’t remember all the names off the top of my head. But what I was getting to is, the baby was not actually born there. In Boston.”
“So Matthew was, in fact, born in Promise Falls?”
“Yes, exactly. But we were literally back here only minutes when it happened. It was on the drive home; we were almost to Albany, and Rose’s contractions started, and I called Dr. Sturgess and he met us as the house and wow, before you knew it, the baby was born.”
“Dr. Sturgess?” Duckworth asked.
“That’s right. Jack Sturgess. Our family physician. And he’s been a friend of mine for a long time. Good man.”
“Why didn’t the doctor tell you to go straight to the hospital? Wouldn’t that have been wiser?”
Another pause. It almost sounded as though Gaynor was talking to someone else in the car. “I’m sorry; you were breaking up a bit there. What was the question?”
“I said, wouldn’t it have made more sense to go to the hospital?”
“Well, in retrospect, I suppose so. But Rosemary really wanted to be home, and the doctor was already on his way, so... that’s what happened. Is there some sort of problem? I mean, I have a proper birth certificate for Matthew, signed by Dr. Sturgess.”
“I’m sure you do, Mr. Gaynor. Listen, it sounds like you’re on the road, and I don’t want you getting a ticket for talking on your cell. I’ll get back to you later today.”
“But I don’t understand the point of your questions. I’m happy to help if you’ll just enlighten me about—”
“No, that’s fine, Mr. Gaynor. I’ll be in touch.”
Duckworth hung up.
The lying son of a bitch.
He sat at his desk, staring at his computer monitor without actually seeing anything. Thought some more. So Dr. Sturgess was not only present for the delivery of Marla’s child, but Rosemary Gaynor’s, too. Even signed the birth certificate.
Except Rosemary Gaynor did not give birth.
He needed a coffee. He went into the station kitchen, poured a cup for himself, and when he returned Carlson was at his temporary desk, a cell phone to his ear. When he saw Duckworth he ended the call, put the phone away.